


Crystals

by applecup



Series: Fragments of a Fallen Empire [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Force Visions, Gen, the Force being a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:39:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12943419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecup/pseuds/applecup
Summary: Eirnhaya Illte sneaks away from an Alliance conference on Ilum at the behest of the Force, to recieve a vision of the past - and an unexpected gift.





	Crystals

Eirn went on a pilgrimage, of a sort, while they were on Ilum - left the Alliance delegation to its business and let the Force tug her across the frigid surface. As much as anything, she was glad to be away from all the politicking - just her, the stars, the freezing air, and whatever clarity happened to inhabit the spaces in between. 

She ended up in a cave, a twisting warren that looked half mined and half abandoned, blaster marks on the walls and footprints years-old in barely disturbed dust and frozen snow. That warren opened up, though, after a while, and Eirn inhaled sharply as she realised where she'd been brought - to a crystal cave, one of the places on this world the Force coalesced into something solid and beautiful. 

The crystals were- _alive_ was the only word for it, humming faintly with their own auras, their own songs, a sort of gentle melody that only she could hear. The largest of them stretched all the way from the cavern floor to its ceiling - taller than Eirn, taller than (Broonmark, taller than the Life Day trees Vette had insisted on putting up in the Kaas apartment - not quite as tall as the most imposing statues of Vitiate she remembered from Dreshdae, but definitely getting there), and the siren that had called her here. 

A part of Eirn immediately resented it, of course; the Force itself, given physical form, a manifestation of everything she loathed about (the pull it had over mortal lives, the total lack of concern it always had for mortal sanity) - and that same part of her, the part that understood it, that when she allowed it to could have sung in tune with the greatest of creation's operas, couldn't help but pull her closer. She approached, gingerly - tugged off one of her gauntlets, eventually, unclipping the armour and baring her skin, wincing at the cold and, incredibly carefully, placing her hand against the crystal itself. 

It wasn't warm - nothing here was, not on this frozen rock, but- it wasn't as cold as she'd expected, either. And so very definitely _alive_ , responding to her touch - not by moving, but with its- its _aura_ , as unreal as it was for a crystal to so definitely have one, and then by- 

\- the cave shifting; crystals shrinking and retracting, lights flickering on that hadn't been in place for _decades_ , and voices echoing down the ages that Eirn had never even _hoped_ to hear again. Her parents, young and in love, and when she looked towards them she saw her father in a decades-old Service uniform, her mother wearing padded work clothes that spoke of being on some excavation or another. A vision, she realised - her parents must have been here, _here_ in this cave, a happenstance that Eirn knew better than to call coincidence, but- 

'/ _My lord_ ,/' her father was saying, offering her mother a bow that was half mock and half sincere. '/ _May I present the bounty of this world, for your inspection?_ /' 

He was offering her a crystal - _that had broken off in his hands_ , the memory told her, _as though it had been trying to tell him something. Even he, as blind to the Force as he was, was still Sith-_

Her mother just giggled to herself, inspecting the crystal for a moment before taking it from him. '/ _Rhan_ ,/' she replied, '/ _I'm touched. For me?/_ ' 

She held it up to the light, at that - inspected it, smiling faintly to herself all the while. '/ _There aren't many Sith with aedegan crystals in their sabers,/_ ' she added, faintly - a fact, Eirn knew, that held true even now. 

' _/A unique crystal,/_ ' her father replied, immediately, ' _/for a wonderfully unique Sith./_ ' 

It would, Eirn knew, produce a pale, purple blade, with a warm, faintly yellow core - a lightsaber she'd grown up admiring, and one she'd tried, clumsily, to emulate. The synthetic crystals of Sith could never match the colours made by natural ones, though - besides which, the Force had apparently had other plans for Eirn's own sabers. Having her mother's hilt hadn't changed that; the crystal had crumbled into dust, drained just as much as everything else the Force had touched on Ziost, and Eirn had felt her heart break a second time when she'd discovered that. 

'/...Mum? Dad?/' She knew her parents wouldn't hear her - knew, even as she said it, she was being ridiculous, but the part of her that had grown up in the shadows of the theatre made her attempt, anyway. 

For a moment, though, her mother almost seemed to react - Eirn knew it was ridiculous to even think she might be able to, this was a- a _vision_ , a glimpse into the past, a shadow of a reflection - but her mother looked at her, _right_ at her, and for a further moment, Eirn was _certain_ that she'd seen her - that she knew that Eirn was there, that she knew what their connection was and why Eirn was struggling, in that same moment, not to cry- 

\- and then it was over, whatever strange intersection of the Force had shown her this and tugged her here unravelling itself, and the vision of her parents fading into the same darkness it had come from. 

_Why would it drag me here. Why would it show me this-_

It was only when she went to wipe away her tears, though, that Eirn realised she was holding something - a crystal, having broken away from the growth that she'd been drawn to, and lying gently in her hands. The same sort of size as the one her mother had held, in her vision; the same sort of size that would fit neatly in her saber, and- well, perhaps it might not be the same blade, but- it would be Eirn's, and connected _to_ her mother's, and that was more than she had ever hoped for. 

Eirn studied the crystal again, for a long moment, after that - wondered just what it was that had pulled her parents here, so long ago, or if that was even relevant, any more. The Force, she supposed, had its reasons - even as she hated them, hated _it_ \- knowing that her parents had not been forgotten, that Ziost would never be a misremembered footnote- 

'/Thank you./' 

The crystal did not react; not that she'd really been expecting it to, and Eirn immediately felt more than a little foolish. The Force, though, seemed to have finally relented - she'd done whatever it felt needed to be done, and was free to leave this place to the darkness and its dust. 

(She did so, once her eyes were dry; steadied herself and ventured back out onto the surface, centred in a way she hadn't been in what felt like far too long) 


End file.
